so today, after much sitting, reading, thinking and petting my cats I have decided. 1/4 comma is my new temperament.
First i took my lute out of her nice bed, few strings jumped from the drastic temperature changes here in the last few days. With a nice A4 piece of paper and a pencil, I marked the current fret locations from the nut to the body (I have not included the frets on the body, I can't change them anyway...) and used the other side of the paper to mark the 1/4 comma fret locations, i used LSA paper and my own calculator to make sure there are no errors. Then I had to move the frets, my frets are old and i really need to replace them, soon my darling... most of them move easily to their new home, the last fret was my biggest problem and i had to put a piece of paper in the back so it will stay tight (still need to work on it more accurately) after solving every error, and rechecking the fret locations, it was time to tune the strings. I used [1]this paper to get the numbers, after tuning, i checked the tune again with my ears and made some fine tuning to the frets. Finally it was time to play, and may the great cat bless me, most of the pieces sounded much better! dowland, was the worst, i hate him anyway... Milan, Milano, Newsidler, Dalza, Campion and some anon sounded like the sweet meow of a just born cat. dowland, as i said before, sounded like all dying whale in chernobyl. Even my first fantasy (not published yet) sounded much better then in ET. After few hours of playing (not sure how much, only my student stopped me from playing more) I put the lute back in her place. I have decided not to use "tastini" fret for now and just go with the music, had no problems with that at all for now. i really wish i could replace the frets, but i cannot do it right now (I've ordered new gut, wonder if i can just use an old nylon string... anyone?) For now, Omer is happy. I'm going to try few more temperaments (well, only two more, 1/6 and 1/8) and I might even create a new temperament with pure tritons running all over the place and screaming for the great cat to help them. but don't mind that now... My plans for the future: Electric guitar with moveable frets, I think it's time to kill ET forever! And of course, I couldn't do it with out you guys (and girls...if any), thank you all for your help and wanting to help. I'm glad this discussion is archived for future generations I gained much from reading everything again before stating to have fun. -- References 1. http://home.planet.nl/~ooije006/david/writings/meantone_p.html To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
